Education for Tribal in Purnia District: A Dream

Tribes are not just within undivided Bihar (prior to the creation of Jharkhand), but also after its division, have received little attention in research or social action. Infact, after the creation of Jharkhand, Bihar is no longer associated with a significant tribal population, with the majority of tribes falling within the administrative boundary of Jharkhand. However, there is a significant tribal population still within Bihar. According to GOI report, the total population of Bihar is 8,29,98,509 of which Schedule Tribes constitute 7,58,351. The decennial growth of ST population in Bihar has been 32.4 per cent which is 3.8 per cent higher than the rate of general population[1].

---

[1] See, Annual Report 2008-09 of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs

Socio-economic status of Purnia District

According to the 2001 Census, the total population of Purnia district is 25.40 lakhs. Out of this, majority of the population i.e., 23 lakhs are residing in rural areas of Purnia whereas rest about 2 lakhs in urban areas. The literacy rate of Bihar is 47.53 per cent (Male 60.32% & Female 33.57%) compared to the literacy rate of Purnia which is 35.51 per cent (Male 46.16% and Female 23.72%). The literacy rate in general and the female literacy in particular, is as low as 44.15 per cent and 33.93 per cent respectively in comparison to the all India figure of 67.30 per cent and 57.10 per cent. Hence, improving overall literacy rate with emphasis on female literacy is another important priority. A topping-up approach under the Multi-Sectoral Development Plan can be adopted here. There is also an urgency to ensure 100 percent enrolment ratio and minimize the drop-out rate.

In Purnia, the major scheduled tribes are Lohra, Oraon and Santhal living in Purnia east, Dhamdaha, Bamankhi and Kaswa Blocks. Majority of them are into the occupation of daily wage labourer, domestic help and selling local wine like Tarri, pochai, mahua etc. Few are also into agriculture, animal hunting and gathering. Tacit knowledge is mostly used for any kind of production purpose. Most of them live under utter poverty and take recourse to loans from local moneylenders to survive. Once in debt, they are caught in the vicious trap of unending servitude. In order to repay the debt, they often mortgage or sell their land to the moneylenders. Indebtedness is almost inevitable since heavy interest is to be paid to these moneylenders.

Regular natural calamities like floods etc. push tribes further into the poverty cycle. On ground, hardly there are footprints of efforts made by the local politicians as well as GOI to eradicate the problems persisting here from ages. Low literacy rate among tribes, especially in women’s is one such example where very little contribution has been made. There are several reasons for this, one major reason is that - in schools, majority of the teachers comes from non-tribal community who carries non-tribal language too which is least understood by the tribal students. Such basic issues are still not yet resolved.  

As per IHD (2008), Purnia lags behind the all India figures in 7 out of 8 indicators also in two major health related indicators. The sex ratio of Purnia is 921females per thousand males which is highly alarming in the state. The average household size of Purnia is 5.10 compared to the state average of 6 that may be a good sign or bad.

The below table 1 exhibits the household size, literacy rate, sex ratio and total population (in thousands) of several blocks in Purnia district. Purnia district encompasses in total 14 block where the average population is 31.21 thousand (highest 36.53 and lowest 20.23), average household size is 5.11 person (highest 5.34 and lowest 4.72), average sex ratio is 922 (highest 936 and lowest 908), average literacy rate of male population is 41.80 (highest 46.41 and lowest 30.11) and the average literacy rate of female population is only 19.56 (highest 26.43 and lowest 9.55). The above data depicts the picture of total block population comprises of tribal and non-tribal communities.                       

Table 1: Block-Wise Household Size, Literacy and Sex Ratio

Source: Village Level Directory, (Census 2001)

As per the data, 61.3 per cent of villages in Purnia district have primary schools as compared to the state average of 72.06 per cent. Block like Dhamdaha where the tribal population is very high i.e., 10.2% the number of secondary schools is much less as compared to other blocks where the tribal population  is very low. There are several tribal areas like Kasba, Banmankhi, Jalalgarh, Bhawanipur, Srinagar, Rupouli, Baisa etc. where schools are hardly functioning. Secondary and Higher Secondary Schools are like a dream for this tribal communities. This is one of the important reason maximum children drop out can be observed from the school.

The below table 2 best describes the status and presence of schools in villages of each block in this district. In an average, approximately 64.29 per cent of villages have primary schools (highest number of school exists in Rupouli block i.e., 87% of villages have primary school and lowest block like Dagarua where only 48.2% of villages have the same) and only 20.87 per cent of the villages in these 14 blocks have middle high schools (highest number of middle high schools exist again in Rupouli block i.e., 39.1 villages have middle high school whereas lowest block like Baisi where only 6.4 % of the villages have middle high schools).

Table 2: Presence or Status of Primary and Middle High Schools in Purnia District

                           

               Source: Village Level Directory, Census 2001

It has been also found that the Teacher’s Training Institute is present in only 2 blocks viz., ‘Srinagr’ and ‘Dagarua’ rest all 12 blocks do not have any single training institute where teachers gets trained. It has also seen that teachers are appointed in majority of the primary schools in this district has minimum educational attainment of SSC and maximum HSC and in the rarest case graduation. In such a horrific situation, the education of people in these areas at a very high risk. Already the poverty condition of these people makes them susceptible towards education as the employment opportunities are also not at par.   

Educational Facilities

According to IHD (2008), very few villages have specialized schools for girls that is available at a mean distance of 9.5 km. For higher education the facilities are negligible here. Higher educational institutions are located only in district towns which are at a mean distance of atleast 24 kms. For polytechnics, Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and other training institutes, students have to travel a distance of more than 38 km. Around 13.3 per cent of the villages have reported the presence of religious schools, that is, Madarasas whereas nearly 50 per cent also reported of the existence of non-formal schooling.

 The location of educational institutions and the distance from the village determines the utilization of these facilities. In this context, tribal are most disadvantaged as almost all of them are settled outside the village. Nearly 8.72 per cent of the schools are available at a distance of 1-2 kms; 12.4 per cent of Hindus have access to schools at a distance of 1-2 kms and 6.94 per cent of the Muslims have access to the same. Around 5 per cent of the population has schools at a distance of 2-4 kms (IHD 2008).

Due to several reasons like poverty, unavailability of schools, long distance to cover to attain school, language barrier or constraints between the teacher’s and tribal students, teacher’s educational knowledge or quality education and least awareness about the importance of education. Because of this, tribal are unaware about several governmental schemes and provisions made to them on paper.

1. Those who are aware about governmental schemes and provisions, they don’t know how to get access. The majority of people from the community have no access of such provisions.
2. Do not have the access of the loans. Though community people are approaching to Banks for the access of loans, banks are delaying in the process of providing the loans. The governments do not provide the subsidies for any type of loans.
3. Due to lack in education government officials and the people try to cheat people of tribal community.
4. Governmental officials and political leaders don’t help the community for making provisions of various schemes and for its implementation too. They don’t have willingness to help to the tribal community peoples.

Years spent in this district explain that development is the most elusive and important concept in the Indian scenario but by and large tribal have been deceived in the name of development. Development for whom and development for what must be addressed otherwise it remain only a popular cheap political slogan. Government and policy makers are making schemes for their implementation but it’s not reaching every section of the tribal society.  At the threshedhold of 21^st centuries we find that to make the concept of Development meaningful needs to be redefinition of the concept. Almost five decades of planned development targeted to Indian population is going to be completed soon but the achievements are at-dismay.  Although several micro planning’s are designed at block level by state and central still the tribal are at the same state where they were before independence. Independence they will feel in real sense when they will get an opportunity to attain atleast higher secondary education in quality schools. Thus this proposal tries to draw portray of overall educational attainment, non-attainment and the actual reasons behind it. This research will also try to look at the major actions and steps required to make short term and long term goals for the entire underprivileged and disadvantaged tribal communities of my district ‘Purnia’.